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The moon was high in the sky, the server was dead quiet aside from the sound of a light breeze and footsteps through a field of wheat. Crickets chirped, everyone else either asleep or staying up late on their latest project.
Not Grian.
The drop of a bottle felt like it rang throughout the entire server, followed up by a mumbled curse and a messy attempt to pick it up before the yellowness of the wheat that blurred before his eyes swallowed it whole.
What was he even doing?
He crouched down, wings fluttering uncomfortably on his back as he tried to find the dropped bottle of wine in the midst of all the grain. Soil got between his nails and into the wrinkles of his skin as he got down on his hands and knees.
He rarely drank, part of him was shocked it only took a few glasses and a bit of grief and depression to get him drunk so quickly. He is fairly lightweight… curse you avian genes.
Which also leads him to where he is now, at a time that he doesn’t even know because his vision is blurring too much to be able to read his communicator. Nothing but wheat surrounded him as he looked up at the scarecrow that he made of his best friend.
Friend.
It felt bitter to say, something his body would taste and scream that it was poison. Like a pill, hard to swallow and unable to chew so he had to force it down his throat to the best of his abilities. He hated it, he hates lots of things, but that feeling he now gets when he calls Mumbo his best friend? He hates that the most.
He stood up on shaking legs, staring daggers into the scarecrow as if it were Mumbo himself. He let out a choked grunt, taking a step forwards as he tried to get closer, almost tripping over his own feet again.
Each step felt like a mile, between his thumping headache and aching legs he didn’t know which was worse. Yet there was something forcing him forwards, forcing him to take every excruciating step closer towards that stupidly perfect scarecrow.
It was made of sticks. It wasn’t Mumbo. It isn’t Mumbo.
…It feels like Mumbo.
He wishes it were Mumbo, he wished Mumbo were here. If Mumbo were here he’d get Grian sobered up, then maybe he wouldn’t be the mess he is at the moment.
But Mumbo’s probably asleep, or building.
Not like he’d tell Grian anymore.
He couldn’t help the grumble that escaped his mouth once he was actually face to face with the scarecrow, something about the way the head went down made him mad. Mumbo won’t even look him in the eyes.
“Stupid..” He grumbled to no one in particular, holding the cold cheeks of the scarecrow’s head and pushing it up so it’ll actually look at him.
He stared into its dark black eyes, the eyebags adding some sort of depth to them that made them (mentally) harder to look at. He reached out, touching a strand of gray hair. He resisted the urge to pull and tug it out. It felt a bit like he’d hurt the real Mumbo if he did that, no matter how angry he was he could never hurt Mumbo.
“Why’d you do that?” He mumbled, speaking to the inanimate scarecrow before him. “I know it wasn’t real, but it r’lly does feel like you’ve broken my soul.” He continued to speak, words slurred together as he stared at the fake Mumbo.
It wouldn’t speak back, it wouldn’t say I’m sorry or hug him. It wouldn’t tell him to drink a cup of water and sleep, it wouldn’t ask him why he was drinking or why he was still up.
It wasn’t real.
Grian wanted to shout, he wanted to scream at it. He almost did all of that, if there wasn’t a small part of him that still had some form of self control. He hiccupped, shoving a sob down his throat. Stupid scarecrow, stupid Mumbo, stupid everything, stupid Grian.
He groaned, slumping forwards as he leaned all his weight onto the scarecrow that was just barely holding up.
“You suck. I hate you.” That’s what he said, he didn’t mean it. He could never mean it, but he wanted to. He wanted his words to have meaning behind them. Maybe it was his intoxicated brain talking, but he wanted Mumbo to feel bad. He wanted Mumbo to feel bad for the hair change. He didn’t care that it was just hair, it was more than that. To him, it was so much more than just a bit of hair. It was an inside joke, one that meant so much to Grian. They shared a soul, they even shared two brain cells.
He wished Mumbo knew how much it meant to him. Maybe he did, maybe he knew and he didn’t care. Maybe Mumbo knew how much he meant to Grian, maybe he didn’t feel the same and was too scared to hurt Grian so he put up with the other for all those agonizing years and now it was finally coming crashing down on them.
He wanted to cry at the thought. He wanted to scream, thrash and kick. He was miserable and he wanted to blame Mumbo, but it was all his fault.
He wasn’t thinking when he did it, when he pulled himself up, when he let out something akin to a strangled war-cry and punched the head off the scarecrow. It hurt, both his knuckles and emotions. The head fell into the wheat below, trampling the crops behind its body, a few sticks sitting with it. But he could care less about the seeds he'd have to replant while hungover the next day.
“Fuck.” His mouth was left agape, staring in shock as more tears welled up in his eyes. The alcohol must’ve really been getting to him because before he knew it he was acting before he could think, getting on his hands and knees to find the head like he had done with the lost bottle of wine. His hands were still dirty, but the sting from the punch hurt too much for him to care about a little dirt.
“Mumbo, I’m s’rry.” He hiccuped out, speech still slurred. He could barely see, stalks of wheat hitting him and rocks in the dirt scratching up his hands and leaving small tears in his clothes but he didn’t care.
His heart and chest hurt when he spotted the outline of the head. It was dirty, despite the god awful lighting he could still see that. He would do anything to see it clean again.
He would do anything to see the familiar imprint of a waffle on the back of Mumbo’s head again. He misses Mumbo so much, yet all he can bring himself to do is get drunk and cry about it.
He’s miserable and it’s his own fault.